Thursday, June 02, 2011

Will We Ever Get it Privatised?

The Minister for Health Profiteering, Twizzler Lansley, has proclaimed a brief retrenchment in the war on the NHS. "We will never privatise our NHS," the originator of the bill to privatise the NHS complained to the Daily Torygraph, possibly not in green ink. The Twizzler reminded readers that the service will face a financial crisis if governments continue to make the right choice between protecting public health and bailing out banks. The Twizzler trotted out the usual guff about the likes of the Bullingdon Club, Eric Pickles and Nick Clegg holding dear such values as "a comprehensive health service, available to all, free at the point of use and based on need and not the ability to pay", and said that sticking with the status quo is "not an option". Since the status quo consists of lots of taxpayers' money being funnelled off to private contractors in return for decades of crippling debt under the PFI scam, this is no more than the truth; presumably, therefore, it was not what the Twizzler meant.

Meanwhile, the British Medical Association has raised objections to the idea of performance-related bonuses for GPs. Of course, the performances to which the bonuses would be related have nothing to do with raising standards of public health or anything silly like that; the bonuses would be linked to the financial showing of the GPs' consortium, thus providing yet another incentive to keep on providing the comprehensive health service, available to all, free at the point of use and based on need and not the ability to pay, which the Twizzler, the Bullingdon Club and the rest of the Conservative Party value so very, very dearly.